Arc One : Maybe Forever
by gamblerrikku
Summary: Thrust into a life she never imagined she'd live, Sakura is irreparably changed when she returns to her village six long years after she left. KakaSaku/SasuSaku/ItaSaku Rated M for Disturbing Themes. Arc Two : The Blood That Binds Coming Soon.
1. Prelude

* * *

_I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly_

_I'll do what it takes 'til I touch the sky_

_Though it's not easy to tell you goodbye_

_I gotta take a risk_

_Take a chance; Make a change_

_And break away..._

_Breakaway – Kelly Clarkson_

* * *

**- Prelude -**

"Tsunade-hime, one of the chuunins from Team Kakashi wishes to speak with you." Tsunade simply rolled her eyes, irritated at her substitute secretary already after less than a full day of having to listen to her. There was only one chuunin assigned Team Kakashi, and it was fairly common knowledge by now that she was Tsunade's apprentice before she was a member of any shinobi cell.

"So let her in, I don't have all day."

"Gomenasai, Tsunade-hime." _At least she's a polite little thing._

The thought barely had time to cross Tsunade's mind before Sakura gingerly entered the room, closing the door softly behind her. Tsunade barely registered the faint color tinting the girl's cheeks before she returned to the aggravating pile of paperwork that plagued her desk incessantly and gave a hefty sigh. Reaching down into her desk drawer, she lifted out a large ceramic jug and shot a warning glare at the abnormally nervous young kunoichi quietly situated on the other side of her desk.

"This doesn't get back to Shizune." Sakura shook her head, an act which Tsunade took as a sign of omitted approval, or at least a silent agreement. She wouldn't say anything.

Taking a large swig straight from the jug before delving into the pile of papers and extracting a bundle of files that were taped together and made up the bulk of the mess, Tsunade regarded her watchful apprentice in silence, inviting her to reveal what might be on her mind at this advancing hour of the evening.

"Tsunade-shishou... I wish to resign from Team Kakashi immediately."

Tsunade nearly choked at her pupil's words and the strong conviction in her stance. Whatever Tsunade had been expecting, it certainly hadn't been anything like that.

"What the hell, Sakura? Why on earth would you want to leave your team now, of all times?" The last Tsunade had heard, Sakura had been acclimating well to the new additions to her team, but a nagging suspicion dug at the back of her mind, and she voiced it just before the girl could open her mouth to speak. "If this has something to do with what happened in Orochimaru's lair, I'm not removing you. You really should begin to accept—"

"It's not that." The girl coughed softly into her gloved fist, clearing her throat as Tsunade kept one eye on her, abandoning her paperwork for the moment with no small measure of glee. "I just feel that my training could be better continued outside of the village, that's all."

"Now isn't really the time, Sakura. Not with the way our enemies are moving, we need you here." The look of pain and severity that the young girl shot her was slightly dismaying, and Tsunade took another drink of sake while Sakura continued to plead her case.

"Shishou, I understand that and would fully respect your orders if you called me back into the ranks, but for now I really need to train on my own. Away from the village." The slight desperation in her voice and deepening color tinting her cheeks led Tsunade to a conclusion that she wished it hadn't. "Please understand, I wouldn't do this if I didn't need to."

Either something had gone completely and irrevocably wrong with the dynamic on her team, or there was something elsewhere that was bothering Sakura enough to want to leave the village. But, teenage girls could be incredibly guarded and protective towards their secrets, moreso than anyone else, and it wasn't likely that Tsunade would be able to extract any real reasons from her. If she made the girl stay, she might be resentful of the order... but if she let her leave, there might be a whole lot more involved with the repercussions than just Sakura's feelings.

"Have you spoken with your parents about this?"

Sakura nodded purposefully. "My mother says it will be an incredible opportunity for me."

Tsunade inwardly frowned, making a mental note to wring the woman's neck for making her decision that much more difficult. "And your father? What does he have to say about this?"

A look of unmistakable disdain crossed the young girl's face as she shrugged, shaking her head slightly. "He doesn't care one way or another."

It wouldn't surprise Tsunade if that statement was entirely true, all things considered, but she was grasping at straws to find a reason to keep the girl in the village. When she couldn't think of anything particularly pertinent, she let out a heavy sigh of resignation and took another long drink out of the jug sitting next to her.

"...Are you going to tell your teammates that you're leaving, or are you going to let Naruto break down my door looking for you?" Sakura actually gave the older woman a chastising smile.

"I'll be leaving a letter for everyone who needs to know, so if Naruto comes to break down your door, it won't be because he's looking for me." Tsunade nodded grimly, resigned to the fact that she was going to have to let the girl go. She wasn't exactly a child anymore after all, and she should be allowed the same chances as her teammates and predecessors if she wished. She'd be damned if she was going to let the girl go without some reigns though.

"Alright, I'll process the paperwork to remove you from our active ranks and you'll have to sign a contract that will go in your record and give you up to ten years of freedom outside of the village. If you don't return to renew it, you'll be branded as a missing-nin, is that clear?" Sakura bolted to a fully upright stance in alarm, staring at her mentor in undisguised shock.

"I'm not planning to be gone that long!" A dry chuckle escaped the older kunoichi's lips.

"Duly noted. Nonetheless, you still have to sign it and adhere to the rules, got it?" Sakura nodded sharply and exuberantly.

"Right!"

Looking upon her student with more than a bit of fondness, Tsunade couldn't help but admire how much the girl had grown; in spirit, if not much in body. She'd be alright on her own.

"Alright then, let's find you that contract." Seeing the excitement light up the girl's eyes, Tsunade felt the need to add her own sentimental advice to what had already been said.

"Remember Sakura, that you are an exceptional kunoichi. Whatever you do, do it with confidence and I have no doubt that your training will serve you well."

* * *

Sakura was nervous and giddy as she delivered letters of cheerful farewell to the few friends she thought needed to know about her departure directly, rather than hearing about it through Konoha's extensive grapevine.

This late at night most of them had been asleep, which had suited Sakura's purposes just fine. In person, the goodbyes might just have been too difficult for her to handle, but she knew how badly she needed to leave the village. In particular, she couldn't have Naruto's overenthusiastic protectiveness stand in her way... and if Ino were to actually confront her about it, no doubt the blond would also try and keep her here... This way was just more sensible, and less painful.

For both Naruto and Ino's letters, it had been easy to pick the lock on their apartment door and bedroom window, respectively. She didn't know where Sai or Yamato-taichou lived, so she had simply left the letters addressed to them at jounin HQ, in the older of the two's mailbox. Being from Root, Sai didn't have a mailbox for her to leave his letter in, so she figured that it wouldn't be a bad idea to leave it with Yamato's letter.

Kakashi was a little more difficult. She knew where he lived, but she also knew that he wouldn't be going back home for several more days due to his condition. He obviously never checked his mailbox in jounin HQ, the dust and cobwebs covering the paper in it being enough evidence for her to deduce that it hadn't been emptied in months, probably even years, and then there was still the issue regarding him being detained within the hospital temporarily.

She could just leave the letter at the front desk of the hospital and request it be delivered to him, but most of the medics and nurses were nosy, gossipy busybodies who would take one look at the letter and rip it apart like a pack of ravenous wolves, poking their noses where they didn't belong and making up stories to flood the rumor mill the next day and for weeks to come. She wouldn't subject her sensei to dealing with that just because she didn't want to risk a confrontation, so in the end she just decided to pray that he was sleeping when she visited, so that she could leave him the letter and depart quickly; A completely clean break.

Walking down the halls of the hospital silently, Sakura found her anxiety mounting as she dragged her feet, trying to stall for time while she approached her teammate's recovery room. There wasn't much else she could do, because she didn't want anyone else to read the letter, but she didn't want to have to say goodbye and walk away if she happened to wake him, or if he was awake when she entered the room.

Standing in front of his door she hesitated before entering, her hand poised just above the door handle while her mind tried to work up the courage to actually open it and walk in. It took the blunt and sensible reminder that if she didn't go in she'd be standing out here forever to get her to move, steeling herself and pushing open the door as silently as she could.

Realizing as she adjusted to the dark that he was asleep, she let out a quiet breath that she had been holding and approached the bedside table, fully intent on just leaving the envelope and getting the hell out of there before he woke up. Eying the orange novels stacked haphazardly on the table with more than a little distaste, Sakura piled them a little more neatly to make room and laid the letter neatly on the table.

Turning to leave as quietly as she came, Sakura was forced to swallow any relief she might have felt as she blanched and quickly shifted her gaze to the bed and then back at the door, not having expected to see double.

"You shouldn't sneak around in the dark, Sakura-chan. Someone might think you're up to something." Sakura covered her eyes quickly as the light was flicked on, cursing more sharply than was strictly necessary at the unexpected brightness and backing up into the table behind her, nearly toppling it.

"What the hell are you doing out of bed and sneaking up on me?!" One look at the bed through squinted eyes revealed nothing to be there, and she openly glared at the man who knew very well that he should be in that bed, resting. He merely regarded her in mild interest, hands in his pockets while he limped back to his bed.

"What are you doing in my room at two in the morning, Sakura-chan?" As her irritation faded to be replaced with far more inappropriate and out-of-place emotions, she crossed her arms over her small chest and huffed, using the gesture as a reason not to look at him and feigning continued aggravation to mask her blush.

"I thought it would be a good idea to deliver news of my resignation from the team in letter form, seeing as you were supposed to be sleeping." More emotion than she normally knew him to show appeared in his wide-eyed surprise, but disappeared as quickly as it came.

"Why are you resigning from the team, and again, why two in the morning? You should be sleeping." Her gaze averted to the floor momentarily before she directed it back upwards, intent on not showing any measure of weakness. She couldn't.

"I'm leaving the village to train, Sensei, and I'm leaving at dawn. I delivered letters to the rest of the team to receive when they woke up too." She didn't expect him to show any sign that he even cared, and so she wasn't disappointed at his lack of any tangible expression. That was just the way he was, and actually made the corner of her mouth lift in a slight smirk.

"Is that so? Well, I won't keep you then. Have fun, Sakura-chan." Sakura raised an eyebrow in curiosity, recognizing his detachment as abnormal, even for him. If he weren't... well, him, she might suspect that he was actually hurt or upset by her leaving, but that most likely wasn't the case. He was probably just miffed that he'd have to put up with two feuding morons with no help now.

"Sleep well, Sensei, and try not to kill Naruto and Sai. They really just don't know any better." She paused before she left, wondering whether she should say anything else before she left until she decided that saying what was on her mind wouldn't be a good idea. She'd probably regret it later on.

She had turned off the light and almost closed the door behind her before she heard him say anything else, and in fact thought she had imagined it. "Don't stay away forever, Sakura. The team won't be the same without you."

She bit her lip softly as a blush washed up over her face, not turning when she replied so that he wouldn't see. "I'm not planning on being gone long, Sensei. Two, maybe three years tops. You'll get along fine without me."

She couldn't make herself say goodbye and he simply gave a short, typical salute as she shut the door completely, etching him into her memory for what was going to be a very long training journey. She needed to do this. Not only for herself, but for everyone else too. She wanted to get stronger, to catch up to the rest of her team, but she couldn't do it here. She was going crazy here, distracted way beyond any point Sasuke had ever driven her to, ever.

* * *

"So, did she go for it?" Sakura barely had time to step into her house before she was accosted.

"Yeah, she said I could go. I already delivered my goodbye letters to the team and Ino." Swept into a hug, Sakura smiled softly into her mother's shoulder.

"I think this is going to be good for you, sweetie, but not for the reasons you think." Hugging her mother softly before letting go and stepping back, Sakura couldn't help but wonder what she meant. The smile on her mother's face was slightly forced though, and Sakura could see the faint sheen of tears in her brown eyes.

"You're growing up so fast, nobody's even going to recognize you when you get back..." Sakura quirked a skeptical smirk, fighting back tears herself. She was going to miss her family as much as she was going to miss her friends.

"Mom, nobody's going to forget pink hair, I don't care how fast I grow. It's just not going to happen." Her mother shook her head, wiping her cheek absently as she smiled fondly at Sakura.

"That's not what I meant, Sakura. You're going to learn a lot out there, and you're going to change because of it. We'll see that you're still the same beautiful girl who left, but... maybe you won't be." Seemingly understanding her daughter's quizzical expression, she simply shook her head a bit, knowing that she was a little too young to completely understand. "Forget about it. Just always be yourself and don't do anything I wouldn't, okay? Have fun, sweetie."

Once again enthusiastic and at the same time apprehensive, Sakura swept her mother into a strong hug again, letting the older woman slip her canvas knapsack onto her shoulders for her, like she had when Sakura was a child attending the academy. They had made every preparation earlier, ready for Sakura to leave as soon as she had been given permission to do so.

"I love you, Mom. I'll be back soon, alright? Don't worry about me."

"I'll try not to, but you can't really ask that of me, sweetie, I'm your mother. Now, just be careful where you travel, alright? Fire country has many enemies and they don't practice discretion towards Leaf shinobi. ...I'll miss you, sweetie."

"I'll miss you too, Mom. Say goodbye to Daddy for me." Turning reluctantly, Sakura felt like her feet were made of lead as she walked out the door and towards the village gates. She knew it wouldn't be so difficult once she was gone, but it did hurt now. She was torn between her decision to leave and her desire to stay with everything she had known all her life; her friends, her family and her village.

She brightened up as she reminded herself that she wouldn't be gone forever, only a few years. Just long enough to get over silly crushes and get stronger. Just long enough to grow up and figure out who she really was. Just long enough...


	2. Reunion of Strangers

* * *

_People say I'm watching life through a glass_

_Desperately waiting on a chance_

_I know you're out there holding on, holding out for me_

_But are we gonna know the time is right?_

_What if you're here and I'm just blind?_

_Unmistakable – Backstreet Boys_

* * *

**- Reunion of Strangers -**

"_Where'd she go? She was just here, I swear!"_

"_Keep it up, man, keep it up..."_

"_No, __really__! She took 'em all out! You can __see__ the bodies!"_

"_No __chick__ did __that__, man. They're just bandits... they probably had a fight amongst themselves. Y'know, survival of the fittest and all that."_

"_I was __right__here__. I saw it all, she was __ruthless__! ...Looked fuckin' __sweet__ though..."_

"_Yeah? She hotter than that blond chick at the hospital?"_

"_...Eh, which one?"_

"_The chuunin with the freaky eyes. Y'know, works at the flower shop sometimes, has a __huge__ rack?"_

"_Oh yeah... nah, this one had nicer legs, but I still like blonds better. She had like... reddish-brown hair, but really dark... and... blue eyes, I think. They matched her dress, sorta."_

"_...That's bull-shit, you just made her up to mess with me."_

"_I did not!"_

"_You did too, now get back to your post before Hatake-sempai actually decides to start listening to his radio and reports you for abandoning your position."_

"_I did not __abandon__ it, I thought she needed help!"_

"_Oh yeah, your __mystery__ girl that __disappeared__. Give it up..."_

Switching my radio off to deprive my ears of the irritating banter going on amongst my temporary subordinates, I debated actually filing a report on both of them just for being so annoying in the first place. I was trying to enjoy the sunny afternoon I was spending relaxing in a tree miles away from where I was supposed to be, and the petty arguments of a couple of squeaky-voiced teenagers was almost ruining it for me.

The view, however, was certainly more than enough to make up for it.

Communing with the memorial stone, under normal circumstances, wasn't exciting in the slightest. Frankly, neither was patrol duty, especially when I was here as a punishment for a minor insubordination. Out of the two though, I preferred the former immensely, because to me, it had a purpose both in and out of peacetime. After all, relating the peace of a warm, sunny spring afternoon to the dead was like talking to a cat, or a plant; They never spoke back or answered you, but it was therapeutic all the same, in a sense.

Under normal circumstances, I was here alone; Everyone else came on anniversaries or special occasions and left it at that. It was a rare, almost nonexistent occasion that anyone else managed to find me here and an even rarer one that I was caught nearly unawares and had no time to leave the tree on the edge of the clearing before I noticed them.

But these apparently weren't normal circumstances, and she had walked right up to the stone without so much as giving a hint of herself away. If I hadn't lifted my eyes from the pages of Icha Icha to stare straight at her, I likely still wouldn't even have any inkling she was there.

She stood perfectly still in front of the stone for a few moments before kneeling down and bowing her head out of respect, where she remained unmoving and in utter silence for what I thought was an odd amount of time for anyone. That might sound hypocritical coming from me, of all people, but with all the time I had spent before that stone, both right in front of it and lounging in this tree, I had come to notice that there were very few people that stayed there for very long, and almost nobody who would spend hours in front of it. Strange as it was though, she did.

The sun met the horizon, transforming the clearing into an attractive shade of orange before she made any sort of movement to leave, and even then she only stood and stared at the stone again, this time tracing over some of the myriad carvings on it; Some of them old, most of them far more recent. Despite one of them being within the last two or three names carved on the stone though, her face betrayed nothing of whatever she was thinking; Whether she was happy or sad, whether the people she had come here to speak to were close to her or not... Nothing.

This was obviously the 'mystery girl' that had been the subject of discussion earlier over the radio. That was apparent enough from the chestnut brown waves that were turning almost red in this light and the short, turquoise colored dress covered in blood spatter that I had initially thought was embroidered embellishment from this distance. That had only lasted until I caught sight of the pattern continuing from her dress to her arms and legs, from dark brown to red. She didn't wear a hitai-ate or any other mark of village affiliation, but it was clear that she was a highly skilled kunoichi, able to mask her chakra to the point where I couldn't tell where she was at all; If I couldn't see her, I wouldn't be able to tell her from the grass she was standing on or the oxygen she was breathing.

If she was a kunoichi of this village though... I was fairly certain that I'd never seen her before. There was something familiar about her that I couldn't quite put my finger on, but even when she turned and began to saunter slowly and gracefully away from the stone, she didn't quite ring a bell with me. As she approached the tree I was sitting in on her way out of the clearing, she stopped right in front of it and her eyes skimmed up the trunk quickly, stopping only when they rested on me.

Her strikingly blue eyes found my own marginally darker one with ease and a strange, almost peaceful smile tugged slightly at the corners of her mouth, contrasting the feigned disinterest that I maintained while feeling almost compelled to return her gaze. There was something incredibly familiar about her that was beginning to bother me, and it went far beyond the passing resemblance she bore to a recurring character within the Icha Icha Tactics books. Even in the familiarity of her passive gaze and subdued smile there was a certain... recognition; She knew me, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out who she was.

Wracking my brain to think if I had ever seen her before outside of the smut-laden pages of my most well-read novels, I might have dismissed her momentary change of hair and eye colors as a trick of the light if I had ever been prone to that sort of lapse before; But I was sure that I wasn't, and the rusty brownish red curls fading into pink was enough to drop pieces into place, even before the blue of her eyes was overtaken with a deep, rich emerald color. Within moments though, before I had taken time to process the realization of exactly what made her so familiar, she had turned away and left the clearing without so much as a word, in greeting or otherwise.

_Sakura. _The name was nearly alien to me after not seeing her in so long, and I hesitated to call it out on the off chance that it actually was her. After more than six years... it almost wasn't worth hoping that she had finally come back, especially after the meager contact she had had with us, none of it direct in the least. Even the grudging recognition that I had always identified her as a natural genjutsu user couldn't quite convince me that it was my former student under that mask of dark curls, even if the sharp lines of her face were uncannily similar to the ones that belonged to the temperamental teenager I remembered.

With it bothering me like it rightfully was, there wasn't any possible course of action on my part that would have left me in that tree by the memorial; If it was her, why hadn't she said anything? She obviously had known I was there and had even made a point of letting me know she was there. If it wasn't Sakura, she might be hostile for whatever reason, considering that she had gone out of her way to flaunt her skill right at me.

Stepping out of the clearing onto the forest path that would wind around the edge of the village and back to the gate, the skin on the back of my neck prickled immediately at the difference in air pressure between the open clearing and the nearly enclosed path. I normally preferred to remain out in the open and take the short way back to the village, but the visibly self-assured kunoichi lounging with her back against a tree no more than five or six feet from me prevented me from changing my mind. She gave me an appreciative gaze coupled with a particularly feral grin that made the hair at the nape of my neck stand on edge before she languidly straightened and began to walk away, the oddly appealing sway of her hips only pronounced by the fact that she was mimicking Mayu's entire outfit; Right down to the turquoise kitten heeled sandals that were her signature. This couldn't be Sakura or if it was... she couldn't know who she looked like.

"Long time no see, Sensei. Nice to see that some things never change." Even walking a good distance behind her and thus being unable to see her face, the amusement in her voice was extremely audible, as was the familiar timbre of her voice that unfailingly identified her as my pink-haired pupil. As much as every bit of evidence was pointing to this being the missing kunoichi though, I just couldn't apply what I remembered of her as a perpetually uncertain girl trying to walk the footsteps of someone much more accomplished than herself to the guarded woman walking before me. It was written in every carefully planned step she took that she was obviously expecting trouble and was ready to act, if needed. The inexperienced student I remembered was apparently now well-versed in survival techniques and not afraid to use them.

"I see you're not in any mood to talk. Alright then, here. Delivery for one Hatake Kakashi, signed and sealed. Catch!" Almost expecting an attack, she surprised me when she merely tossed a clean, unblemished book still in its plastic covering at me and turned back away, letting the flap of her small brown leather bag fall shut as she continued walking, to all appearances completely disregarding me. The book was immediately recognizable, between the forest green cover and the bright red adult advisory on the back, but before I could ask how she'd gotten it, I noticed an identical copy in her hand as she walked, opened to someplace in the middle and now more interesting to her than the path, though her step didn't falter one little bit as she carefully picked her way among the uneven dirt and sticks upon the ground. Despite being baffled at her completely unfathomable behavior, I did manage to notice that, true to her word, the book was signed as well as sealed; Though how she'd gotten the author to sign it was a mystery in itself, forget that it was literally a miracle. Finding my voice, the accumulated shock of her return and her seeming indifference to handing me a completely unobtainable as of yet book of illustrated adult fiction could be summed up into one fairly coherent sentence.

"How did you get him to sign it?" Without turning or even looking up from the page she was on, one white shoulder shrugged slightly as it spilled out of her off-the shoulder bodice and a finger from the hand opposite the one holding up the book rose to wind around one of her russet curls.

"I did him a favor, so he returned it." Nearly choking at the possibilities that ran through my mind at the mention of 'favors' and the subsequent realization that it was innocent little _Sakura_ that my mind was trying to associate with said 'favors', I had to shake those thoughts free as I chastised myself into accepting that she probably meant that she granted him medical treatment that she hadn't necessarily had to. Granted, considering the gossip that floated through town now and again about the time she spent with the perverted Sannin, she could have intended the suggestive nature of her statement, but once again, I just couldn't associate a woman like that with Sakura. Not sweet little unassuming Sakura-chan.

"What kind of favor?" Hesitant and unsure of whether I wanted the impossibly bad possibility of her answer to confirm whatever nasty rumors had been started in her absence, I almost didn't want to hear it. Fortunately, the answer she gave as she snapped the book shut and stopped to let me catch up didn't give any hint that she was lying, nor did it conform to the worst case answer that I hadn't been hoping for.

"I've been giving him free publicity for the better part of six years. He owed me." She flipped her long curls over her shoulder and propped the hand holding her book on her hip, clearly gesturing at her choice of disguise and confirming the fact that not only did she know who she resembled, she had been doing so for quite a while now and enjoyed it. What the _hell_ had happened to her?

"Not that it matters, I guess. Its not like I hated doing it, though I suppose it has to stop once I actually set foot inside the village. Six years... It's been a while, hasn't it?" Well, it had felt longer than it had actually been... First because of Naruto's persistent insistence that she be dragged back to the village rather than leave her to be preyed upon by his own perverted mentor, and afterwards... when Sasuke had returned to the village, his own nearly obsessive protectiveness had joined that of his blond counterpart. Not that I myself hadn't noticed her absence rather acutely, but I at least knew better than to think that constantly bringing forth the subject would remedy anything.

"Naruto and Sasuke have particularly missed you." Walking nearly right beside her now, the momentary distortion of her mouth into a nasty scowl coupled with the narrowing of her eyebrows didn't escape my attention, but the uncharacteristic sharpness to her voice was particularly jarring; She'd never even spoken to Naruto like that before, not even when he particularly pissed her off.

"Sasuke is incapable of mustering up enough emotion to care about me in the first place, but actually missing me? Don't make me laugh." Truthful as she was, I still had a hard time with the unfamiliar chill in her words; She wasn't speaking from experience that we shared, that was clear enough. She was speaking from her own encounter with the Uchiha, one that I knew very little about and that had apparently given her a very poor opinion of him.

"Hn. Considering the amount of time you've made them wait for you, I assume that your training was productive? Your genjutsu skills have improved considerably, not that I'm particularly surprised." It was faint and almost unnoticeable even to me, but her cheeks tinted a soft pink under freckles that I knew shouldn't be there while she gave me an understandably odd, though unreadable look. I wasn't one to give compliments where they weren't due, but she had not only slipped past me, unnoticed, to pray at the cenotaph, but she had also cast a genjutsu on me, without even any aid of handseals. Even Kurenai, an undisputed expert of the illusionary aspect of the shinobi arts, couldn't perform her jutsus without handseals.

"I imagine that my training was sufficient... I'll admit that I'm still a poor study when it comes to ninjutsu though, I'm afraid..." She didn't look particularly repentant of that fact though, instead silently acknowledging that she had instead spent her time surpassing her own limits in other aresa that were more useful to her. I couldn't help notice now that I was in closer proximity to her though, that she wasn't in fact using a genjutsu to disguise her appearance.

"You seem to have a nice handle on the henge jutsu though." It was perfect, as near as I could tell. She had even learned to not only mask her chakra, but actually generate a different signature, indicating that 'Mayu' was actually a different person than 'Sakura', which would actually be better for surviving than simply appearing to not have any signature whatsoever. Her teeth found slight purchase in her bottom lip as she regarded me with undue scrutiny before simply shrugging whatever concern she had been harboring and continuing on with her ladylike traipsing of the forest path.

"Spending so long in it, you could say I've mastered the finer points of the jutsu. It was a pain in the ass trying to figure out how to scramble my chakra signature though." Breaking through the end of the path into the open air again, the sun didn't appear to have dipped any lower over the horizon than it had before we left the cenotaph. Any reply I had to her observation regarding the more delicate points of chakra control was completely cut off by the heavy sigh that escaped her as her eyes flew straight to the sign about the village gates.

"Well, I'm back... For better or for worse."

"Why?" She turned to raise a delicate eyebrow at me in question, clearly expecting me to elaborate on my question. When I didn't, an almost amused quirk crossed the lilt in her smile and she tilted her head to one side in what was apparently meant as an enticing gesture to extract an answer from me.

"Why what, Sensei? I'm good, but I can't read your mind." Her voice even took on a different tone and I had to once again remind myself that this was _Sakura._ She wasn't the character she was trying to play, she was my student and by that association alone I should be able to separate the two. Unfortunately, that was something that was far more difficult than it should rightfully have been, because she was damn convincing. If she hadn't let me know otherwise, might I have actually thought she was the woman Jiraiya modeled her character off of?

"You said you'd be back three or four years ago. Why come back now?" She didn't flinch, but something in her small smile died at my words, leaving her with only the poker face she had turned up in to cover the fact that I had obviously upset her. Truth be told, I had almost expected her to act like she might have several years ago; To begin crying or to pout and stalk off... but she did neither. She merely didn't look at me as she replied, something that bothered me more than it should have, I suppose.

"I wasn't ready then. I... thought I was ready now, but..." She turned halfway away from me and flipped her hair back over her shoulder, adjusting her bag as she did so and stepping into her path in the opposite direction of the village. What was she doing?

"If this is the kind of reception I'm going to get from my friends, you can all just wait a few more years." She very nearly managed to put her foot down on her first step away from me before I caught her slim wrist in an effort to halt her retreat, knowing full well that I was not going to let her walk out on us all again. Once was enough for Naruto, once was enough for Sasuke and now that she was back she was damn well going to stay.

"The village gate is that way, _Sakura_." The emphasis I placed on the lack of honorific actually provoked an out of place expression of amusement on her part, especially when used in conjunction with the collectively feared tone of voice that I only used when I was particularly intent on being listened to and obeyed. Apparently I was no longer intimidating to the younger kunoichi, despite having been able to command her obedience fairly easily when she was younger. Maybe I was just losing my touch.

"So it is. How are you going to convince me to walk back through it, I wonder?" Her own stance relaxed as long nails grazed against my bare forearm and her smaller hand closed loosely against the inside of my wrist, an unmistakable note of challenge in her voice. A friendly challenge, but a challenge nonetheless.

"I'll incapacitate you and drag you back to the Hokage myself if I have to. You aren't leaving again, Sakura-chan. Get used to it." My voice ground out in a rather out of place fashion for the circumstances as I once again was forced to remind myself that this was Sakura. She was playing a character and it was that character that was hitting all the right notes and attracting my attention in the way she shouldn't be. Once the disguise was gone, she'd be awkward little Sakura again. Like as not, even whatever differences she had had with Sasuke wouldn't stop her from accepting his inevitable proposal once she stepped into the village itself because the bad blood between them was obviously one-sided. They'd probably had some sort of spat that Sasuke had gotten over and she hadn't, that was all. Personal experience with Sakura stated that she could hold grudges for a very long time... but that wouldn't stop her from falling head over heels for the Uchiha again as soon as she got her anger out of her system.

Surprisingly, rather than getting defensive or angry like I had expected her to, she laughed. A quiet, almost non-existent laugh that, along with the faint shake of her head, indicated both amusement and slight disbelief.

"Is that so? Well, I guess I'll just have to take your word for it, won't I?" Her nails dragged across my skin again and this time I let go of her, since the pressure she put behind those sharp little claws of hers could only mean that it was deliberate on her part. She made no move to run for it, not that I thought she'd get very far in the flimsy shoes she was wearing, but instead pivoted slowly and flounced off in the direction of the village, completely baffling me with her behavior. Apparently noticing that I hadn't followed her, she turned when she actually go to the gatepost and leaned on it, pointedly turning her head back to look at me and offer a non-verbal invitation to keep her company.

"I was only kidding, Kakashi-sensei! Tsunade-shishou already knows I'm due back in the village, I couldn't very well just leave without saying anything to her, could I?" Imagining the fiasco her disappearance would cause if the Hokage was expecting her only because I for one had caused many such minor problems purely to annoy the hot-tempered blond woman, I almost smiled while I gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

"How does the Hokage already know you're here? I'm pretty sure that the patrol aren't the ones who alerted her..." Considering that they were too busy noticing that she was an extremely nice example of the female half of our collective occupation, I honestly doubt that they had done anything but bicker about her existence, forget actually reporting her to the Hokage. Once again she simply displayed her indifference with a shrug and the replacement of her well-worn poker face over her natural features as she waited for me to catch up. Just inside the gates, Tsunade's gossip-mongers and overall errand-boys had both pricked up an ear and shifted their attention to the as-yet unfamiliar kunoichi leaning passively on the thick wooden gatepost.

"I had Jiraiya-sama send Gama-kichi ahead telling her when I'd be back. He's probably back before me anyway, so it was probably pointless, but it's the thought that counts, right?" A familiar and completely unwelcome chakra signature materialized nearby, distracting me momentarily with the fact that I was not going to want to be here in about 5 seconds. Either there was going to be a fight that I didn't want to get in the center of, 'Hell hath no fury' and all that... or there was going to be a 'moment' and I was going to lose every ounce of respect I had managed to gain for my former student in the last twenty minutes or so.

Thinking, I looked down at the unopened book in my hand. Maybe... not every bit of respect. She had good taste in literature, at least.

* * *

_She's here. Finally, she's come back._

From my perch on the Fifth's head, my seat as hard as the uppity bitch's own thick skull, I couldn't have missed it if I tried. _She_ had finally come back, the one who had killed my curse of a brother and delivered me back into the safe haven that was this sleepy little village.

The one who insisted that I had bonds to repair here before I could even consider trying to do so with her.

She had taken away my life's purpose and given me a new one. I wanted _her_. She was going to be mine.

My wife. Mother of the children that would reignite the dying flame that was the Uchiha clan.

My fragile little cherry blossom, my dear little Sakura-chan.

_Mine._


	3. Author's Update

**UPDATE!**

_**For anyone who was hoping this would be a chapter, I'm dreadfully sorry to have gotten your hopes up. Here's hoping that my news will make you happy enough to regain any lost patience.**_

_**I will be taking a short break from attempting to continue Maybe Forever. I've written and re-written Chapter 20 and 21 over and over, and I'm a bit stuck at the moment, especially when my mindset is effectively being shoved back into Healing A Healer continuously. What I will be doing during this break is going back to edit, embellish and possibly completely rewrite the first 19 chapters and the Prelude, hopefully both to pull myself back into the characters as they apply to this story and to smooth out any unintentional plot holes that have been so kindly pointed out to me.**_

_**Thank you to anyone who has read and enjoyed this story, when I come back with Chapter 20 I hope the entire story will have improved and will be a pleasure to read again. **_

_**-gamblerrikku**_


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